


Secret's Out

by magic_maker



Series: Chicago Jo [1]
Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Friendly banter, Gen, No Smut, one chicago meets my hellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28912167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magic_maker/pseuds/magic_maker
Summary: Secret's Out is the introduction to my Joanna. Super short chapter to set up a brief introduction.Chicago Jo series is just a bunch of stories, mostly short or ultra-short. Some of them are worked into actual scenarios from the show(s), some of them are completely original. When the timeframe is relevant I'll indicate the timeline in intro notes.
Series: Chicago Jo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120460
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Secret's Out

**Author's Note:**

> Set in season 2, around February 2014.  
> There may be continuity errors, or I may deliberately shift stuff around.

‘All right Spiderman, go get him,’ Kelly Severide directed Joanna Maksim who was safely harnessed and geared up to climb a utilities pole and retrieve a drunken high schooler who’d lost a dare. 

‘Shouldn’t that be Spider _girl_ , Lieutenant?’ Herrmann asked, watching her step off the aerial ladder. 

‘You wanna be the one to tell her she’s a girl, Herrmann? You think she’d appreciate that?’ Kelly replied with a grin. Jo was happy to be feminine--off work. On the job, she was one of the boys, as far as she was concerned. 

‘Eh… maybe not.’ 

‘Thought so.’ He returned his attention to the woman climbing above them who had reached the wayward teenager CFD was rescuing. He was controlling her ropes, there for safety and in case they had to be lowered to the ground instead of descending the few feet to the aerial. 

‘Kid’s getting squirrely,’ Herrmann observed.

‘If we can see that down here, she saw it up there a minute ago, Herrmann,’ Kelly said. He had full faith in her. ‘I’ve seen what she can do.’

‘Still--’ 

‘Herrmann!’ Kelly snapped losing patience. ‘You are all but saying outright that I don’t know what I’m doing and you should think very carefully about where you go from here.’ 

‘Got it, Lieutenant,’ Herrmann noted and moved off deciding that “away from Severide” was the best place to go.

Kelly watched Jo get the scared boy into a safety harness, working efficiently and smoothly despite the neoprene gloves she wore against the cold. He was right; Jo had noticed the teen’s demeanor changing before Herrmann had. She was less worried about herself than him, because she was safely harnessed already. Seconds after she’d finished hooking him up, she was extra glad for the harness, because he jerked away, elbowing her temple and knocking her shoulder and head back against the pole, leaving her swinging for a moment. She grabbed his arm and yanked him back, restraining him in a half nelson hold before motioning to Kelly to lower them. She wasn’t going try to get him down the aerial when he was struggling violently. 

As they descended she risked using one hand to radio down, ‘Bring glucagon, he’s hypoglycemic and combative and you won’t get an IV right now,’ Shay met them at the base of the pole and Jo maneuvered them around so that she could stick the struggling kid in his upper arm. 

‘You okay with him?’ one of the cops on scene asked, resting his hand on his cuffs as the boy screamed obscenities and struggled against Jo. 

‘Fine,’ she said through gritted teeth, more from annoyance than exertion . ‘He doesn’t need cuffs, he needs medical treatment.’ To Shay she said, ‘This is Connor, 16, type 1 diabetes, probably hypothermic, was doing pretty well mentally until when his sugar crashed.’ About a minute and a half after Shay had administered what was essentially concentrated sugar, the kid started to calm down. It would be nearly fifteen minutes before the dose was fully effective, but his sugar had climbed enough to put an end to the “diabetic rage” he had been experiencing. Minutes later he was on a gurney, with Shay setting up an IV and hanging a line with dextrose and fluids. 

When Shay looked at Jo’s face where Connor had elbowed her she winced. ‘You should get that checked.’ 

‘Nah, I’m fine. I’ve taken harder hits the gym.’

‘Jo, get it checked.’ Kelly had come up behind them.

Jo sighed. ‘Are you telling me as my friend or my lieutenant?’

‘Both, with an emphasis on the boss.’ 

‘I want it noted that I’m getting this checked under duress, and if I’m fine I’m kicking your ass tomorrow morning.’ she said with a scowl as she climbed into the back of the ambulance with Rafferty. 

As the crews packed up the scene, Otis asked, ‘What’d she mean she’d kick your ass tomorrow morning. You got something going with her?’

‘Yes.’ Nearly everyone in earshot stopped what they were doing and looked at Kelly, who was grinning mischievously. ‘We run most mornings. And she’s brutal.’ 

‘Thought she meant literally.’

With a shrug, Kelly said, ‘She may have. She’s done that before.’ A few more people nearby turned and looked at him questioningly. He paused then added, ‘She’s also been my friend for over a decade.’ This time everyone stopped. 

‘But it’s a coincidence that she got this assignment?’

‘Nope. She got into CFD and squad certified fair and square--I had nothing to do with that. But once that was done, I did ask Boden if he could try to get her to 3. There was an opening at the right time. So she’s here. And I’ll say now, if you give her a hard time, you’d better be prepared to back it up.’

‘Or what?’ Tony demanded.

‘Just say that she’s happy to prove herself in any challenge you want to throw at her; and don’t ever tell her to pick a challenge. Trust me, I know.’

‘All right, let’s pick it up!’ Boden ordered and the crews hurriedly got back to work.

Jo returned to the house a few hours later, hitching a ride with Shay and Rafferty after being discharged. 

‘Well?’ Kelly asked, arms folded. 

Jo handed him a sheet of paper. ‘I’m cleared and fine.’ She paused then added with a scowl, ‘Doc said that’s mainly because my hat and hood absorbed a lot of the impact. Call it a draw?’

‘Fair enough,’ Kelly said with a grin. ‘Secret’s out, by the way.’

‘That’s fine,’ she said agreeably. She’d proven her abilities and skills by that time, and she knew Kelly wouldn’t have said anything if he didn’t think it was safe to do so.

Back out in the common room, Herrmann saw her and ‘How did you meet? If you’ve known each other 10 years you hadda been a little kid then.’ he guessed.

‘Hi Herrmann, nice to see you too,’ Jo said rolling her eyes. ‘I was 11 or 12, so around 13 years. He was like 20.’

‘Damn, Severide.’

‘Yeah yeah. It wasn’t like that.’

Jo glanced at Kelly, an unspoken question in her eye. He shrugged almost imperceptibly. ‘He _was_ my first kiss though. But I was 16.’

‘And it was academic,’ Kelly added. 

‘That too.’

‘Whaddya mean “academic”?’

‘I asked him to teach me so that the guy I had a date with the next week wouldn’t think I was a loser.’

‘Uh huh. So no sparks then.’

‘Yeah no,’ Jo said with such firmness that Kelly pretended to be wounded. 

‘Did it work?’

‘Briefly. Jason broke my heart like two months later.’ 

‘You were too good for him.’ 

‘You’ve said that about literally every guy I’ve ever dated... Except Dean.’

‘That’s because he was too good for you,’ Kelly replied with a smirk. 

‘Bastard,’ Jo muttered with a grin. Tones going off put an end to the discussion, as the full house was rolled on a call that took them past the end of the shift and left no energy for banter when they finished.


End file.
